


Broken

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: LAOFT Extras [60]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gaslighting, Gen, M/M, Past Abuse, doubting your own perception, loving an abuser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 09:57:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20374888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: “But even when I stop crying, even when we fall asleep and I’m nestled in his arms, this will leave another scar. No one will see it. No one will know. But it will be there. And eventually all of the scars will have scars, and that’s all I’ll be – one big scar of a love gone wrong.”- Amanda Grace, But I Love Him





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt:
> 
> “if I’m remembering correctly, May doesn’t learn about Roman’s full involvement with Durant in the main storyline. Does she eventually get the full story? How does she react/feel about all of it? I imagine it must be painful to think of someone you care about being in a relationship like that” (from an anon)

It wasn’t the first time, of course.

Roman woke up with his face tacky, a pit in his stomach. He sat up woodenly, dislodging Dizzy next to him, and she made a disgruntled yowl in response.

“Shut up,” he muttered, but he didn’t mean it and they both knew it, so Dizzy didn’t listen.

“You spend entirely too much time _awake_,” she said as Roman pulled back the covers and stood, “And now you’re getting up at-”

She glanced at the clock.

“-three A.M. and giving up even more of it,”

“Go back to sleep, then,” he said softly, “I’m just getting some tea,”

Dizzy went quiet.

“… Okay,” she said, a little suspicious.

Roman scratched her between her ears briefly, swiping down the side of her head and under her chin when she leaned into it. Giving her another pat, he left the room.

Left cupboard. Willow bark for the pain and Lemon balm for the-

He shook himself.

He measured a teaspoon each and dropped them in his favorite mug. A cup of water, and a perfunctory nose wrinkle at the floating bits, and he tossed it in the microwave.

Mamaw would actually kill him if she found out he’d been nuking potions, but she was asleep and he wasn’t interested in waiting for the kettle to boil.

Roman tried to look through the cupboards as quietly as he could manage, because surely they had to have a lavender tincture around here _somewhere?_ He was almost certain he hadn’t used it all up, and the alcohol would help him get back to sleep.

Maybe. Hopefully.

He finally found it, shoved behind Dizzy’s cat food for some reason, and the microwave was already finished. He should have timed it but it was probably close enough to six minutes

Grab the mug. Half an ounce of the lavender tincture. Tablespoon of sugar so it’s not so _disgusting._ Stir counterclockwise.

Roman tried not to gag as he sipped at it. There was a reason he hated potions.

But he’d tried just about every combination of protection charms he could think of, and nothing seemed to work – three days the poppet had lasted him this time.

_A new record_, he thought bitterly.

Drink the disgusting liquid. Think about the grocery list. Think about the tractor supply list. Almost out of milk, almost out of chicken feed.

\- _smooth__ hands, scales on the knuckles, running down Roman’s cheek -_

Stop. Chicken feed. Maybe meal-worms, too. If he buttered them up a little maybe they’d stop trying to maul him every time he opened the damn gate.

Roman was convinced Jax was egging them on, though the overgrown pigeon insisted he wasn’t. Roman didn’t know what else he could be doing, perched on the roof and hissing at them until they started running around the pen cackling.

_\- a whole crowd of fae at the base of the platform, the moonless sky above them and everyone could see them but it wasn’t like they didn’t already know -_

Stop. _Stop._ Milk. They had enough for scrambled eggs in the morning, probably. Or pancakes. Maybe. Definitely not both.

But Dizzy and Jax would just fight over who got the first pancake, they always did, and Roman was running on entirely too little sleep to break them up, especially when it was this hot outside.

_\- skin so cool it burned everywhere it touched him, touching, touching-_

Stop, stop, _stop_, fucking _hell_-

“Roman?”

Roman startled, sloshing tea all over his hand and table. His skin felt sticky from the sugar immediately, and he frowned.

“Why’re you up?” said Mamaw, groggy and thick, shuffling into the room.

She was softer like this – somehow not dying in a flannel nightgown, her white hair in a long braid and ludicrous slippers shaped like chickens on her feet. A gift from Patton she’d called obnoxious and then wore religiously every night after.

Roman turned away, avoiding her eyes.

She came up behind him, laying her hands on his shoulders – he could feel the way her eyes started boring into the back of his head when he tensed up automatically.

“C’mere,” she said. Her tone brooked no argument.

Roman left the tea potion on the table – it wasn’t like it was doing him any good. He regretted it as soon as he sat down next to her on the couch, because now he didn’t have anything to do with his fidgeting hands, and nothing to put between him and her knowing eyes.

Mamaw pushed some hair back from his face, and Roman tried to swallow the lump in his throat and tried not to lean into it and failed miserably.

“What’s wrong, baby?” she said quietly.

Roman shook his head.

“Nothing,”

She gave him an unimpressed look.

Roman shook his head again, insistent. Closing his eyes.

“Desdemona said ya’ve been havin’ dreams,” she said pointedly.

“Traitorous hairball,” he muttered.

Mamaw sighed. She pushed his hair back again, pursing her mouth.

“Somethin’ real awful happened to ya, Roman,” she said quietly, “Yer allowed to have a bad dream,”

Roman stared at her.

Growing up, it always seemed like Mamaw knew everything. Everything he did, everything he thought about doing, everything he _should_ do.

She didn’t, obviously. He knew that now, far too well. She didn’t know this. She wouldn’t ever know it – not unless Roman told her.

“It wasn’t a bad dream,” he said thickly.

Her hand froze in his hair.

Roman’s chin wobbled. Might as well lay it out.

“He was so nice to me,” he whispered, “Almost all the time. He talked to me about so many things, and – he said he couldn’t talk to anyone else,”

Eyes burning, Roman’s hands started to shake.

“And I- I don’t know, I though I was _special,_ I guess, and- and he was so kind most of the time and only- only wasn’t when I’d pissed him off, so if I just _didn’t piss him off_ it’d be perfect, right?”

“Roman,”

“And I woke up,” he croaked, ignoring her, “I woke up and I remembered he was dead and I _missed_ him, because- because-”

Mamaw made a soft, wounded noise in the back of her throat, pulling until Roman had his head pillowed on her frail old shoulder and he curled up like he was seven coming back from the woods with a skinned knee.

“I loved him,” he sobbed, “I did, I really did and- and I don’t know what that _means,_ what does that even _say_ about me-”

“Nothin’” she said wetly.

“He did awful things,” said Roman, “To Virgil, to Greta, he said awful things about Logan to my face and _did_ awful things right in front of me and I didn’t care,”

“Yes, ya did,” she corrected.

“Not enough,” he hissed, “Not enough to stop loving him,”

Mamaw shook her head against his, squeezing him far harder than Roman would have though her frail arms capable of.

“Oh, baby,” said Mamaw, her voice more shaky than Roman had ever heard it. Something wet plinked down onto Roman’s face.

“Oh, baby,” she repeated, kissing him on the top of the head, “You ain’t the first kid fell in love with a monster. Ya won’t be the last,”

“This is different,”

“No,” she said, “No, it really ain’t,”

“We’re talking about _murder_, not slapping me around drunk in a trailer,”

“That ain’t fuckin’ funny,” she snapped.

Roman wilted.

They went quiet. Mamaw rocked them a little, and Roman scrubbed fruitlessly at his tacky face.

“I dunno what to say,” she admitted weakly.

Roman hiccuped.

“But ya got dealt a damn sorry hand,” she continued, “And ya did what ya could with it,”

“More like I bluffed while betting my house,”

“Ya didn’t deserve it,”

His stomach twisted.

“Not for the deal,” she said, “Not for what it did to Logan. Not for anythin’ ya did while you were tryin’ to stay alive,”

She kissed the top of his head again.

“Certainly not for love,” she croaked, “Ya got a heart the size of the whole damn county, Roman – plenty of room for all kinda people in there. That ain’t a bad thing,”

“Stupid, definitely,”

“Not stupid,” she said, “Not weak. Ya didn’t do _anythin’ wrong_,”

Roman didn’t quite believe her. But he knew _she _believed it – Mamaw wasn’t one to sugar-coat the truth. She’d definitely never had a problem telling Roman he’d fucked up before.

So maybe that could be enough, for now. To know at least one person for sure didn’t think Roman was a screw-up. Didn’t think he was _pathetic_ for being weak and vain enough to fall for the first person who paid him enough compliments, even if that person _was a monster._

He’d loved Dee. Loved him so much some days he though it was going to kill him. Loved him even when he thought _Dee_ was going to kill him.

And he had missed him, barely awake and still half-dreaming. He’d wanted him back.

But awake, now, with a heartbreak potion settling warm – if not exactly palatable – in his stomach, he didn’t – didn’t miss him or want him back. Even if only because the fear outweighed the grief.

And the love…

Roman sniffed, wiping his cheek on the flannel of Mamaw’s nightgown. He thought of Patton, who cried when his voice slipped on Roman, and Logan who told Roman he loved him so much sometimes he got stuck and couldn’t stop saying it, and Virgil – Virgil who Roman was sure would fetch him the moon if Roman asked.

And Mamaw – who knew every mistake Roman had ever made, and didn’t care.

Roman had plenty of love. Real love. 

He didn’t need to miss the kind that hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> you can also find me at [@tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors](tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com) over on tumblr!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [heartache pales in comparison to love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24190954) by [teacupfulofbrains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupfulofbrains/pseuds/teacupfulofbrains)


End file.
